Penance

Tried Wolfsbane and it's lovely and piney! Yum! Also tried Burial today and I'm in love! It's like juniper and pine and dirt...I'm in heaven. ~ Penance

C'est la vie, eh? I've learned to live with it. I make it up by loving the things so many other people hate: patchouli, cedar, oakmoss...all the dirty, woodsy, manly type smells. I guess it balances out in the end, plus it gives me plenty of trading fodder. ~ Penance

Well, there're some that I would prefer not to try because they have lemon or anise in them, but they're not on my "avoid like the plague" list. The only things on there are almond scents. Apparently there're a lot of BPAL scents with almonds in them. ~ Penance

Gee, I wonder what little birdie that might have been? I hadn't even considered Golden Priapus. Gonna have to go look at the reviews now...I'm all giddy with excitement. Nummy woodsy scents! Yay! ~ Penance

I have Belladonna but haven't gotten around to trying it yet. I'll have to move it to the front of the line and try it out in the next couple of days. ~ Penance

I definitely will. I've had my fair share of being sick as a dog as a result of smelling certain oils (*cough* Baron Samedi *cough*), so I'm planning on staying way the hell away from everything else on that list unless there's a damn good reason for trying them...or unless I'm really drunk and feeling reckless. ~ Penance

Ooh, might have to check Aquarius out. Thanks for the heads up! I pine! ~ Penance

That's okay, hon. You've helped enough with the almond issue. I really need to get a big bottle of Loup Garou and one of Capricorn. I'm so sad they're discontinuing the celestial oils. ~ Penance

Will do! Thankies! I think my "avoid like the plague list" is now officially longer than my wishlist. ~ Penance

Well, damn, I knew there was a reason for it! ~ Penance

Okey-dokey, I'll mark Bordello down. Thank you! Why oh why must so many scents have almond in them? It makes me so sad. But on a brighter note, I finally found one with almonds that works reasonably well on me: Old Port-Au-Prince. I know it's on the list, but I had it from a swap and the sassafras and rum were calling my name... ~ Penance

Okay, tried Anne Bonny and I adore it (got a 10mL on order). I want to try Umbra but so far no luck getting a swap for some. Good point, Witch's Dagger, what I meant was the sort of scent that Black Forest is...sort of piney and woody and earthy all at once. I love pine and cedar and redwood and all that, but don't care for herby type scents too much. Does that make sense? ~ Penance

Yay! Now I'm glad I took the chance on swapping for it. I was afraid it'd be too herby. ~ Penance

Okay, I've tried Ulalume and didn't care for it; for some reason on me it was in your face floral. Got Wolfsbane coming in a swap and I've tried The Hesperides and it's mostly apples on me, but I'll have to give the rest of those a shot. Checked out Skindazzles and Enchated Forest sounds like it's right up my alley, thanks, andrabell! Now I just have to wait for it come back in stock. ~ Penance

Technically it's pronounced SOW-EN. Or something very similar, but us uncultured Americans say SAM-HANE. ~ Penance

Okay, I adore woodsy scents, really woodsy scents. I've tried both Loup Garou and Black Forest and I love both of them with a passion. I also love Capricorn. Other scents I've tried that I would consider woodsy are Darkness, Omen and Hamadryad (although it's almost pure cinnamon on me). Anyone else have any suggestions for super woodsy scents for me? I couldn't care less if they're uber masculine, I like that sort of thing. I could go through and list all of the oils I've tried, but it would take up way too much space, so I'll just leave it at that for now. My only stipulations are: 1) No citrus, especially no lemon 2) No almond Anything else is fair game in my book, so any suggestions would be welcome. ~ Penance

Got a bottle of this from Red_Hot_Mama and I'm in love! I'm not a Capricorn, but I prefer earthy/woodsy scents to florals, so I skipped my own sign (Libra) and went straight for the one that was calling my name: Capricorn. First sniff: Oh God, cedar...I'm in love! Beth had to have been reading my mind when she came up with this. It's gorgeous, it's woodsy, it's earthy, it's perfection! Must get more of this before I lose the chance forever. Wet on skin: Mmm, cedar...I'm one of those rare people who adores the smell of cedar to the point of obsession and this is perfection. I can smell something underneath the cedar just barely peeking out, but I'm not sure what it is. It's earthy smelling, but I can't put my finger on it. Everytime I think I have it down, the cedar blocks my view and I lose track of it. Dry down: This is the forest in a bottle! The cedar is still going strong, but the earthy scent has picked up, too, balancing it out. I'm thinking it's patchouli I'm smelling, which is also wonderful because I adore patchouli as much as I do cedar. This is absolutely gorgeous, it's the exact scent I've always been looking for when I've sniffed bottle after bottle of men's cologne. This is absolute heaven for me! The bottom line: Woodsy and earthy and perfectly gorgeous. I can see this working equally well on a man or a woman, but I have no plans to share mine with my man. I can see I'm going to be hoarding this one like the miser I am...going to have to order some more while I still have the chance!

First sniff: Mmm, pine and wet dirt, I can tell this is going to be a winner already. I love forest scents! Wet on skin: It smells like walking through the forest after it's rained and it's gorgeous! It smells like pine and sap and damp dirty and wet leaves, the perfect composite picture of what my childhood in summer camp was like. This is the exact kind of scent that I adore in a perfume, it's not too overpoweringly masculine, but it's definitely not girly, either. It's just nature at its finest. Dry down: There's a faint powder scent there now, but I can ignore it for the sake of the rest of this gorgeous scent. The pine has softened and been replaced by a general woodsy kind of scent. The dirt is still there, but softer as well, leaving me with a very soft, woodsy scent that I absolutely adore. The bottom line: I feel good wearing this, like I'm back at Glen Helen again, hiking through the pine forest and listening to the sounds of nature. For me, this is childhood in a bottle. This is defintely going on the big bottle list.

Preconceived notions: I was expecting something acrid and harsh, like sitting too close to a bonfire with your eyes watering and I would have enjoyed that, really I would, but Djinn was definitely a surprise. First sniff: A bonfire made with pine needles and sappy twigs! This is really nice and strangely comforting. It reminds me of Christmas, truth be told. Wet on skin: Ashes and smoldering wood with a background of what smells like pine to my nose. This isn't a dangerous smelling scent at all. It's comforting like a blazing fireplace on Christmas morning. I actually feel warm wearing this and very content. I would have imagined this scent would be harsher and more primal, but it's warm and inviting on me, bringing back some very good memories of my childhood. Dry down: It's settled down into an ashy fireplace kind of smell with a persistent undertone of sappy pine. It's very comforting and makes me feel very secure, something I was in desperate need of when I put this on. This smell holds so many good memories for me that I couldn't even begin to list them all. They're all composited in Djinn, though, and the result is an overwhelming sense that all is right with the world, even though that's far from the truth right about now. The bottom line: Strangely comforting and instantaneously calming, at least for me. This isn't harsh and acrid, it's gorgeous, like sitting by a campfire made with green wood and pine needles and smelling the flames and ash and night air and knowing that, at least for that moment, you have nowhere else to be and no responsibilities to live up to apart from listening and watching and relaxing. A definite winner. ETA: I meant to add this before, but it kept slipping my mind...I finally figured out what Djinn is almost identical to: those little pine needle incense sticks you sometimes find at specialty stores. The ones that come with a little log cabin burner where the smoke comes out the chimney. Djinn is the smell of those incense sticks when they're burning - a sort of smoky pine scent that's very distinctive and very comforting to me for some reason.

Thanks, ChupaChup! I'll give Snow White a chance if I ever get a go at it, it's worth the risk, methinks. Besides, I've heard it smells a lot like LUSH's Snowcake which, for some reason, doesn't make me sick even though it smells kind like marzipan. I'll just cross my fingers and my toes and hope for the best. ~ Penance

Thank you, everyone! I'm pretty sure I aced it, so here's to hoping I'm right! I guess it does have to do with pychopaths, come to think of it... It's basically advanced abnormal psychology. Very interesting stuff, it's the high point of my week. I wish I had that class every day. ~ Penance

First sniff: Cinnamon maybe? Or is it Dragon's Blood? I'm thinking Dragon's Blood. Whatever it is, it smells lovely. Wet on the skin: Yep, that's Dragon's Blood, alright. It feels kind of tingly on my skin, too, so I'm guessing there's cinnamon in here, too. I like this scent a lot, but it's already fading on me and I've barely put it on. Dry down: It's settled down into a nice, spicy resin type smell, which I adore, but it's so light that I can barely pick it up anymore. I'm also not feeling the effects, but maybe it's just because I've had a bad day and I'm really not in the mood for that sort of thing right about now. The bottom line: I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this one yet, I'll probably have to give it another try before I decide. The scent is nice, but not strong enough for me, but I didn't intend to wear it for the scent. The effect is also lacking, but that could just be due to my craptacular day today and not to any shortcomings in the formula. This one's going in the undecided pile. ~ Penance

I'm with you, BabyKitty, Zombi would be my choice. I love Zombi, even if my man does say it makes me smell like I've been rolling around in the garden. ~ Penance

March Hare is fantastic and so is Perversion! You'll love them. ~ Penance

I was just going to say Perversion, too! I adore the smell of clove cigarettes and Perversion is perfect...at least in my humble opinion. ~ Penance